“I know my numbers aren’t going to be good,” Martinez said before the Yankees played the Blue Jays at the Stadium last night. “Now that I understand that, I’ve definitely been feeling better and getting better results.”

This season has been an ugly one for the first baseman. Since coming to the Bronx before the 1996 season, Martinez has been a lock for 25 or more home runs and well over 100 RBIs. But throughout 2000, he has been persistently unproductive, especially for a first baseman. No one has known that more than Martinez.

“This was as tough a year as I can remember,” said Martinez, who hit his 14th home run in Wednesday night’s 3-2 win over Toronto. “And it definitely has weighted on me. I started pressing more and more as the year went on until it became apparent that I wasn’t going to be able to recover. It was tough for me to get there, but eventually I did.”

It certainly helped that the Yankees started playing better and were able to put some space between themselves and the their competition in the AL East. While the team was plodding along, waiting for everything to fall into place as it has in each of the past four seasons, Martinez’ lack of power and production was more evident and affected him more. Now, with the division seemingly well in hand, Martinez has been able to relax, somewhat.

“There’s no doubt that our improvement made things easier for me,” Martinez said. “I felt responsible for us not doing as well as we should have been. We’ve been playing really well for a while now, so I’ve been able to put that out of my mind a little bit.”

That’s when things finally began to improve. His RBI total has picked up and with 86 going into last night, he still has a chance to get to the 100 plateau, but he isn’t overly concerned about it.

“At this point, I just want to help the team,” Martinez said. “The numbers aren’t important. There’s no way I can erase what happened earlier in the year, but if I do well, what I’ve done in the past, and finish up strong, that will make me feel a lot better. Right now, it’s all about September and October. Nothing else matters. I have to put everything else behind me.”

That’s fine with Joe Torre.

“It’s too late for him to have his normal year,” the manager said. “It can’t help him in ball games to be thinking about stuff like that. It’s much more important that he help us win rather than trying to match past years. That’s not going to happen.”

And Torre was able to convince Martinez that the season wouldn’t be a total waste if he finished strong and led them down the stretch.

“What he is still going to be able to do is be a big contributor for us when we need him, like he always has been,” Torre said. “In the last month, he’s done that. He’s contributed as much as anyone else on this team. I think that’s because he finally came to that realization.”